Part 1 of our interview is here!
We talked to David Gaider, lead writer on the Dragon Age franchise...he dropped some big bombs
But lets start......with how the writer treats sexual diversity in his games
We're speaking with David Gaider - one of the senior writers at Bioware, mind behind Dragon Age, he was lead writer there for many, many years - talking a little bit about the romance options in the entire series and of course a very exciting character in Dragon Age Inquisition.
At what point did you make a decision, because you alluded to it earlier, to have different sorts of romances and different sorts of relationships in Origins that weren't available – they were available – but that weren't, as you said, widely accepted in the gaming world? Do you remember that instance and did you feel like it might have been a risky move?
It wasn't new to Dragon Age. We've been doing romances for a long time.
Yeah, of course.
I think they were kind of expected. And we weren't even the first ones to do gay romances. Jade Empire was probably our first. I think Jade Empire was – and I wasn't involved on that project – but I remember hearing about when they made that decision to put it in and I was floored. I mean, I'm gay myself, so I felt it kind of odd when I heard about it, how shocked I was because I just never thought that part of my life had a role to play in work. Like I said, it just wasn't done. I didn't even really consider the idea, so when they made that decision it was like, oh, really?
And I think there was a lot of apprehension about what the reaction in the gaming community would be. Because I think a lot of decisions on development teams get made, not based on the developer's personal feelings but their assumptions about the audience. I think that's a lot where the conservatism streak sort of comes from.
It's nervousness from the people who have all the money, and they're worried about the risk. And I think it's from the people who make the games that are probably, I would say, lean liberal and [unclear] educated and sort of what they assume their audience will or won't accept. So, when the decision was made for Jade Empire I think there was some apprehension, but I think also an idea that this was something that needed to happen. And I think when Jade Empire went out we were kind of surprised at how it really didn't cause the kind of explosion that we had thought. And I think that made us a lot bolder.
But yeah. After that, it was the original Mass Effect. I think that came out before Origins, and there's been a sort of a cultural development in the years since. There's a certain amount of backlash but I think also a certain amount of support as well. And I think what each time we've done that, what has become pretty clear is that from a bottom line standpoint, you could make the argument, I suppose, that if we didn't include that maybe the game would sell more. You could also make an argument that if we didn't include that the game would sell less.
We're putting out something that appeals to players who don't traditionally get represented in games, so maybe more of them come to play the games. Maybe it's just enough to make up for the ones that are turned off by that. But, ultimately, it hasn't really affected our sales insofar as we can tell. So, the idea of how commercial a consideration it is kind of goes out the window and we can focus on just doing the right thing.
We're doing a bit of a jump here, but since we are on the topic: Explain the character of Krem in Dragon Age Inquisition and how that goes into the natural progression of creating realistic characters that you were just mentioning.
We had never really done a transgender character prior to that. I mean, we had a character in Dragon Age Origins – or was it Dragon Age 2? Serendipity. I think that was Dragon Age 2.
Yeah. Dragon Age 2.
That we had originally intended to be a drag queen from the design perspective. And then I remember we just couldn't really get the appearance for that. So she appeared as a woman, and so I think the interpretation was that she was intended to be transgender. Which wasn't what we had intended but, I mean, authorial intention kind of goes out the window. It's what we put out there.
And the thing is, I think, someone, I remember, came to our forums at one point – the BioWare online forums – and complained and said: you know, you do these characters. In Dragon Age Origins you had prostitutes that you said this one's 'male' - and it was in quotes – and then you have Serendipity in DA2, which I read as transgender and also a prostitute and generally used for laughs, right? And it just feels really cheap, don't you think, that that's the only way these characters can appear?
And I got to ask Mary Kirby, she's the one that wrote Serendipity. She loved her dearly. And yes, we had used her for laughs. And I think when Mary read that she was like, you know, that is fair. And so that's what she responded on the forums. She said, you know, that is completely fair. That's something we should think about.
Because it's not that we couldn't have a Serendipity. I think the thing is that that was our only presentation of that type of character. That was all we had. And when we're talking about representation, if we have, say, a gay character, it's not that the gay character has to be a particular way. It's that if you look at the breath of your presentation, if there's only a very select amount of those characters, or one, then what they are sort of does become a statement.
It's like a female character. If the only females you have in your game are all second fiddles, damsels in distress, or very weak characters, then you don't have any breath. It's like, in Dragon Age 2, we have Isabella, who is a very sexualized character. But, she exists in the context of a game that also has Aveline or Meredith. So, if you have some breath in the portrayal, then there is some context.
I think that was the thing that resignated with us, is that okay, that is a completely fair statement. We fucked up with – oh, pardon me.
It's all right. No worries. This is peer credit. No worries.
Okay. We fucked up with Serendipity, so it's like, you know, if the opportunity presents itself, maybe we can think about what we're saying with a transgender character. And there are people out there who would look at that moment as a, oh, now you've limited yourself creatively. I don't look on that as a limitation. It's not a prison.
Just because our first idea was let's make this transgender character that's a prostitute and is there for laughs – having a moment to talk about that and thinking about maybe there's some other things we could do is not limitation. It is: just acknowledge that maybe that's a bad idea, or maybe it's just a bad idea to do that all the time. Or maybe we should consider not only what that says to us but what it is saying to our audience. Just the moment of having that conversation is not a limitation. It allows for more creativity.
So, Krem is an excellent example because I think originally the character of Krem was supposed to be somebody else. Maybe actually a cameo, I can't remember which, but that didn't work out. So, Patrick Weeks was writing and he became sort of Iron Bull's second in command. And he was just a male mercenary character and it seemed kind of dull.
And I think it started with Patrick. I had already made a character called Maevaris Tilani in one of the comics, and he said it would be neat if we could take that on step further and have something in the game. And would it be cool if I made this character transgender?
And the team started to discuss it, and we were like, oh! That's not a limitation because the moment he said that it was just like, oh! Well, let's stop and think about that for a moment. And that sort of opened up all new ideas of what that would mean. Well, okay, how would Iron Bull as a member of the Qunari feel about transgender? It led into a conversation about the way the Qunari view gender, which is different from us. And there's a way, we figured, when we wrapped our heads around it, I don't think the Qunari would look on gender the same way we do, not the way that when we've discussed them.
And the idea of the Chargers, Iron Bull's mercenary group, they sort of consisted of the other. And not the other as in a threatening or a derogatory sense, but people who had different experiences and who they were said something about Iron Bull. You know what I mean? It became as much about him. So, when Patrick talked about that, it was like, yeah. I was like, go for it. Explore that and see where you can put it. And maybe see if you can find somebody in the transgender community that you can run it by just to make sure you're not doing anything untoward because he was- I think that was as much his idea because he was very concerned about doing something inadvertent.
And that's very easy. And you can never do it perfectly. I mean, there's always going to be a way that somebody can sort of turn it in their heads and they're going to interpret it a way that's not going to be what you intended. But that's okay. The purpose of making characters is not make them inoffensive to everyone. I think that's almost impossible. But you want to be careful to not inadvertently says things you don't intend, like with Serendipity.
So, he put together a treatment of the character that seemed interesting. It got some interest. We talked to our VO department if they'd be willing to work with that. Because it's like, can we find a transgender voice actor? Possibly – now certainly more than before. But, whether a voice actor, one that is signed up with a voice agent that we can deal with. Is that an option?
A lot of hurdles.
Yeah, what are the hurdles for doing this? Is it possible that an actor might object to that kind of role? When we started with the gay romances, that was also a concern. We have actor in the booth, say, okay, your character can romance somebody of the same gender, go. And you think, wow, who's going to have a problem with that? More than you'd think.
Really?
I mean, not even a problem, but that somebody might be uncomfortable with it, and that that would then come across in their acting - especially if they weren't aware that this was a possibility or something. So, it's something you just got to keep in mind. Our VO department, Caroline Livingstone, our VO director, was absolutely enthusiastic about the challenge involved. And, who played Krem? Jennifer-
Jennifer Hale.
Jennifer Hale, right. She jumped on the idea. She did research. I think her voice performance was fantastic. When I first heard it, knowing Jennifer Hale's voice as well as I do, I could hear it, but I think she did a solid job.
I think if we do something like that again, we need – actually, not need. That's a bad word. I think the next step would be to see if we could actually find a transgender performer. I think that should be our first stop, at least to see if that's an option. I don't actually know what the hurdles are. I'm not in VO. I don't do the casting. I just know that wasn't as easy as it might first appear.
But the fact that the rest of the team just sort of jumped on it – I think we ultimately made a character that might not be perfect in very sense, but that was indicative of more thought going into the process than we'd used previously. Because I think when mistakes get made it's hardly ever intentional but more often than not is just born of ignorance.
Thanks for the transcript. Interesting interview.
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